Sunday, January 2, 2022

Raymond E. Brown on John 19:30 in "Christ in the Gospels of the Liturgical Year"

  

In John 19:29-30 a sponge of full common wine is placed on hyssop and offered to Jesus, an episode recalling the Marcan/Matthean incident where the sponge was placed on a reed and offered to him before he died. By mentioning hyssop, fern-like and certainly less suitable than a reed, John is again playing on symbolism, for in Exodus 12:22 hyssop was used to sprinkle the blood of the paschal lamb on the doorposts of the Israelite houses. Jesus is sentenced to death at noon (19;14), the very hour on Passover Eve when the priests began to slaughter the paschal lambs in the Temple precincts. In his death he gives meaning to that mysterious acclamation of John the Baptist uttered when Jesus made his first public appearance: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29).

 

For the fourth evangelist even the very human cry “I thirst” (19:28) must be st in the context of Jesus’ sovereign control of his own destiny. Jesus utters it “aware that all was now finished, in order to bring the Scripture to its complete fulfillment.” And when he takes the wine, he declares, “It is finished,” and he hands over his spirit. (Raymond E. Brown, Christ in the Gospels of the Liturgical Year [Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2008], 189)

 

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